Be Holden

Chapter 3: Look Back

You daydream while your body heals. Your eyes are fixated on the trees standing outside the window. For a moment you hear a bird chirping, and the shadow man leaves the room. In a memory, the transparent lady lies on the ceiling and looks at you after you open your life pod. "Are you lost?" She asks you. You do not see her. The tall shadow looks at her, but you do not know that he is looking at her. He mixes talking to her and yourself in so well that you did not know he was talking to someone else as well. She moves around the ceiling trying to catch your attention. She even became translucent but you never looked up. When your sister's hair was lifting off her head in the strange room with invisble objects and you ran to her. It gently dropped back down to her shoulders and she was upset with you for making noise by knocking over some unseen objects. You just wanted to help her by fixing her hair problem. That night you saw shadows waltzing around near the walls in the candle light as if it was a grand occasion. Although most of your kind was asleep, whispers and soft chattering crawled into your range of hearing as you lie on a naked mattress in a bare room. You did not sleep that night. Instead, you skipped down the stairs until you approached the source of all the soft noises. There were shadows sitting at the dinner table in the dining room. They had on masks. The masks were human faces attached on their shadow faces with the help of strings from the scalp of the owner's of the faces tied behind their shadow heads.

They all looked in your direction and you felt uneasy but pushed yourself to focus on the empty seat at the head of the table. It sits still until a warm breeze past by you. As the candle light shines directly upon it, you see that it is a woman as waves of rainbows shine throughout her being. The heads of the shadows turn to her. "So, you see me now." She whispered. You nod and she looked at her peers. She waves her hand to dismiss you and an unmasked shadow pulls you back to your sleeping quarters. The memory shifts back to the table. "We are here to discuss the future of this manor. I foresee a lot losses if we do not find that tree before anyone else does. If we lose our overseer, we lose our freedom and most of all we lose ourselves. That tree could hurt us in a way that I dare not speak of. He is an outcast amongst the other overseers. I vote to poison their connections amongst each other by giving two of them the little amount of fruit we have found from the tree." She said. "No, we should ask them to forgive our overseer for whatever they think he has done wrong and...Let us all hope that they do not destroy us all and lock him away forever in a stone." A masked shadow said.

"We can wait the storm out and see what happens." Another masked shadow says. "No, were you not listening to our overseer the last time we were in a meeting! He has done many things that are unforgivable and the other overseers will lock him away for it." She said. The candle is blown out by a sudden rush of wind entering the dining room. A tall shadow appears at the entrance of the room. "I protect you all and keep our alliance a secret, but you all talk about me this way. Where is the gratitude? Are you afraid that no one else would want traitors such as yourselves? Are you afraid of what they will do to you? Why? Do you not want to be destroyed, if you know that you cannot be by my side?" He said. They all look at each other silently.

The pain and soreness is gone. You were sitting there for a while. You walk down the steps with a slight limp. You walk past an open front door into the dining room and no one is there. You go to the kitchen and the backdoor is open. No one is there. You look outside the kitchen window and find the translucent woman blowing air through her hands. Bubbles form from the action and morph into your mother, your father and your sister before bursting. She giggles and looks at you. She waves for you to come out and blow bubbles with her. You shake your head. She keeps waving but she realizes that you are adamant about staying in the manor. She vomits on to the grass and the creamy lumpy mess sprouts weeds and flowers. At the center of the vegetation, a little pod pops up out of the ground. It grows bigger until it looks like a white casket. She looks at you with fake astonishment. She points down at it before climbing on top of it and knocking on its face. She looks at you to make sure you are watching her little act. Then jumps off of it and opens it. Your sister crawls out of it groggily and looks around. She finally sees you and she waves for you to come outside. You shake your head. She is not satisfied with your answer so she runs toward you while the puppeteer watches. Your sister hugs you. "It has been so long since I have seen you! We need to leave this place. Follow me." She says. You shake your head and she nods. Her voice deepens into a gruff echoing voice. "Why don't you want to leave with me?" She asks. She grabs your wrist with one hand and your neck with the other. "Do not play with me, seedling! I see through your masquerade. The travesty of your knowledge is repulsive. I think you know where that tree is." The translucent green lady walks into the kitchen. She pokes the tiled sink with her index finger and releases a huff. She looks at you and rolls her eyeballs.

This is like the time your mother attacked your sister when she found out your father raped her. She sat on her bed which was right by yours and she attempted squeeze her neck. Sorrow stopped her in the end. She cried for a long time but your sister did not stir. Or did she feign sleep? You did not know which it was. Your mother turned to get up and leave that morning; you turned away and shut your eyes as if you were sleeping the whole time.

You find black gloves clapping before your dazed sight. The present is back in focus. You look to see the owner of the digits in front of your face. It is the brown haired guy that helped you out of the rain. The same one that was outside and frozen in one place. "I know you what is going on here. What is this place and who is that lady?" You ask. "You don't need to know." He says.

"What are you hiding from me? What is going on here?"

"It's best that you don't know but she is hell bent on you finding out anyway."